Friday, March 11

The colourful French Zouave Regiment soldiers of 1914 brought to life

The latest sculpt from Life
Miniatures is a 1/10th resin cast in which the sculptor Eduard Perez has
made a likeness of a French soldier of the Zouave Regiment in 1914.These
colourful colonial soldiers are a great choice for figure and bust painters so
we thought we would give you a look at him unpainted, painted as well as some
references of the source material in today’s preview.

Life Miniature’s new bust is a 1/10th resin cast
in which the sculptor Eduard Perez has made a likeness of a French soldier of
the Zouave Regiment in 1914.

Zouave was the title given to certain light infantry
regiments in the French Army, normally serving in French North Africa between
1831 and 1962. The name was also adopted during the 19th century by units in
other armies, such as volunteer regiments raised for service in the American
Civil War and Brazilian free black volunteers in the Paraguayan War.

The well known Zouave uniform in the period of the early first world war

The painted up figure from Life Miniatures.

The
distinctive appearance of such units was given by the Zouave uniform, which
included blue sash, braided short open-fronted blue jackets with waistcoats,
baggy trousers (Seroquel), oriental style red fez like hat called a "chichi", and
voluminous red trousers was the usual attire for the Zouave regiments.

The four Zouave regiments of the French Army wore their
traditional colourful dress during the early months of the First World War. The
development of the machine gun, rapid-fire artillery and improved small-arms
obliged them to adopt a plain khaki uniform from 1915 on.

The Zouaves played a major role in the 1914-18 War with
their numbers being expanded to nine regiments de marche. These units retained
much of their traditional panache, especially in attack.

In the French national imagination, the Zouaves, dressed so oriental and romantic, were also the most exemplary and eccentric warriors. It is still said “playing the Zouave” for someone who makes a spectacle and behaves like an idiot. (the phrase "faire le Zouave" can be translated as "to act the goat" i.e. to behave wildly.) Surely in hindsight not a great name but owned by the soldiers who were regarded as fierce fighters.

This figure is cast in grey resin and as we said sculpted this time by Eduard Perez in 1/10th scale. The sculptor has captured many of the key uniform features we have talked about and shown you here. The good thing is that you have a painter on hand like Sang Eon-Lee to paint the bust for your box art!

Below are some of the painting steps as this figure was brought to "Life" by the painter...